The Next Five Years
by wateriswide
Summary: Derek had no idea where the next five years would land him. He never looked that far ahead. Dasey.


Title: The Next Five Years (one-shot)  
Rating: PG-13 - R (language, suggestive situations including stepsiblings, nothing graphic)  
Summary: Derek had no idea where the next five years would land him. He never looked that far ahead.  
Disclaimer: Life With Derek sadly enough doesn't belong to me, sorry.  
Author's note: This is a new style of writing for me, and I don't really think it worked out that well, but let me know. Thanks for reading!

--

Derek hates Paul's office. The chair he has to sit in is uncomfortable and he has to face a window, which begs the question of how he's supposed to pay attention to anything the counselor's saying when daydreaming seems like the better option.

"Have you thought anything about university, Derek?"

Derek starts, his eyes opening past a squint. He rolls his eyes and launches into a speech that he thinks Paul wants to hear, about wanting to go and he's sure he'll be asked by some places for hockey. But Paul won't let it lie there.

"What are the most important things in a university to you? The academics, sports, location, cost?"

"Well, it has to have hockey. Academics, I couldn't care less about, I don't even know what I want to do. Location...I guess it depends on where Ca--"

He cuts himself off, frowning and inwardly slapping himself. "...on where cost is less," he finishes lamely.

Paul nods and writes something down on his pad of paper, and Derek can't read his expression. More than that, he has no idea why the first thing he thinks of in terms of location is wherever Casey's going. He tries to rub it off, thinking that he'll go somewhere on the opposite side of the country depending on where she'll be, and refuses to think of the alternative.

--

He decides on University of Toronto pretty quickly. Their hockey team is amazing, it isn't so far from home that he can still get Nora to do the laundry pretty often, and the girls he sees on his campus visit are so far above and beyond high school girls that he can't imagine having a bad time. Oh, and the hockey scholarship doesn't hurt.

Casey gets in, too, a fact that makes him roll his eyes at her by day and lie awake at night, wondering if she would actually go. Because that would be just what he needs, the member of his family who nags the most constantly being there and lecturing him on what exactly the amounts of alcohol he was consuming was doing to his brain.

George and Nora seem all for it, although Nora tries not to push it as much, saying Casey needs to make her own decisions. George keeps talking about how they could get an apartment together and everything, and it's way too much for Derek, who says that one of the perks of going to college was getting _away_ from Casey.

The night after she announces that she's decided on University of Alberta, three provinces away, he can't fall asleep and feels the sudden need to tear down the wall between their rooms. He settles for taking sleep meds and punching his pillow instead. It's not the same.

--

The night's dark, the air's warm. Short-lived sparks from the bonfire float up in the sky before extinguishing quickly. There's the sound of drunken laughter surrounding them from all directions, and Casey is beautiful. (For an obnoxious step-sister, that is.)

"You're not going to miss me," she says in a matter-of-fact way, her voice betrayed by a soft giggle that threatens to surface. "Admit it. 3000 kilometers between us is one of the best things about our colleges."

The giggle escapes, and Derek can smell a tiny amount of alcohol, but only because he was paying attention. She was wearing the same purple dress that she had worn to graduation earlier that day, and she somehow managed not to wrinkle it. Hanging from her ears were a pair of silver earrings that Derek had given her two years ago for her birthday. He hadn't picked them out. Hell, he hadn't even known that it was her birthday until Nora shoved the gift in his hand, telling him she would love them and next year he had no excuse to forget it.

Her mouth calms after she stops laughing, and it relaxes into a contented grin. She looks at the bonfire and it illuminates every corner of her face. Her eyes glow and Derek refuses to acknowledge that there isn't even a twinge of regret on her face after her last statement.

"Yeah, I probably won't."

He sleeps with a blond girl that night. He never learns her name. The only thing they have in common is that they know it's only for one night, and he loves it and hates it at the same time.

--

Casey takes charge of university planning the next day. Nora and George think it's a great idea and force Derek to go along with her crazy shopping trips and list-making (color-coordinated and cross-referenced).

They go shopping for some basic dormitory stuff, and Casey drags him into the furniture section of the store. She says she's planning for an apartment for the next year, and Derek rolls his eyes, but he goes along with it. Before he knows it, she's asking the saleswoman for a dresser in a different color and wondering if the mirror that goes along with it would fit in the apartment that she doesn't actually have yet.

"First apartment together?" the woman asks, and Casey blushes so badly that shades of red appear that have never been seen on a human being before. Derek, for his part, can't stop laughing while repeating the word "No" over and over. The woman blushes and apologizes, and Casey gets refocused, and they wander off, chattering about matching living room sets.

Derek weaves absentmindedly through the aisles of chairs. His fingers brush the leather of a recliner, and he frowns, knowing that this was just the sort of thing Casey would want in her living room. It's new and sleek, and it smells amazing. Nothing like his recliner at home.

He shakes his head and distracts himself by dragging Casey away from the saleswoman. He doesn't want to think about college anymore.

--

The night before Derek leaves for Toronto, he and Casey are sitting in the living room, mindlessly watching television. Everyone else is asleep in their respective bedrooms. The faint sound of Edwin's snore makes its way downstairs, which makes them snicker at first, but now, it's just a calming presence.

Derek isn't paying attention to the TV, although his eyes are glued to it. Every so often, he glances out of the corner of his eye to look at Casey. After two hours of this, he's sure he has every part of her body memorized. He closes his eyes and redraws her in his head briefly, remembering, before opening them again.

They don't have a heart-to-heart talk. They don't work out their differences, or apologize for the over-the-line things they've done to each other over the years. They don't talk about the future, or how this is their last night together for who knows how long.

They don't talk about how going to school in two different provinces isn't close enough.

"Night, Derek," Casey simply says before she goes upstairs, without any kind of acknowledgment to these facts.

He doesn't tell her that night, or the next morning, or when she gives him one last awkward hug in his dorm room before saying goodbye, that he already misses her so much that it hurts.

--

They don't really talk for the first few weeks at school. There is the occasional e-mail that Derek reads over and over, trying to find some hidden meaning, only to find that it's filled with the words of a casual acquaintance. He doesn't initiate conversations.

He knows that they're both trying out this new life, life without each other's constant presence. He plays hockey, goes to parties and occasionally class, and he revels in an environment of so many willing girls that giggle and hang onto his every word and actually think that he's something special.

The fact that it's four months before he even hears Casey's voice again (home for the holidays) tells him that she's adjusted well to college. She doesn't think about him all too often. She's able to leave behind their old life in London and become someone wonderful. She can be amazing without someone constantly arguing with her and holding her back.

"Derek!" she says, and her voice actually sounds excited. She immediately hugs him and he allows her to. Maybe she's learned how to hug differently at college, but she holds on to him a little more tightly than she usually did. He breathes in and exhales, not realizing how much more alive he felt just being in the same town as her.

"I missed you," she breathes, then lets him go.

"Really," he says, his voice sarcastic. He then smirks quickly to show her he's teasing, and she smacks him lightly on the arm, but that's it.

--

They're playing poker a few weeks later, the night before Derek and Casey return to school, and Edwin's winning by a landslide. He says that it's because he knows when his family is bluffing, thanks to years upon years of research, but Derek claims it's just luck.

Luck is something that isn't on Derek's side that night, and for the first time ever in a poker game, he's in dead last. He says he doesn't get enough practice at school (which is a lie, because he's won enough money to keep him living comfortably, even in a dorm room), and then points the blame at someone else, voicing his belief that Casey's a bad luck charm.

She merely rolls her eyes and says that she'd better stick around, then, and she takes him all in.

They're the only two left in the hand. Edwin and Lizzie are cheering on their respective brother and sister, Edwin and Nora are laughing, and Marti seems to be content with her own deck of cards on the floor. Derek raises his eyebrow and smirks, never one to back down from a challenge. He studies her face, trying to see past her unknowing expression, and once he's determined that she's bluffing, he still stares at her for a second more.

"You are such a bad liar," he says, pushing in all his chips. "You can't keep anything a secret." He turns up his cards, revealing a straight.

She smiles in a wicked way, then shows her cards: full house.

Derek (and Edwin) groan in frustration, while Casey gleefully takes all the chips. Derek rests his head on his hands in defeat.

"See?" she says. "I have my secrets that you don't know about."

Derek's eyes immediately flick upwards to meet hers, and an almost scared expression flashes across her face before it's replaced by her winning smile again. She gets back to focusing on the card game, and Derek can't really breathe properly for a few seconds. He excuses himself to get a consolatory ice cream sundae and wonders if he made it all up.

--

The rest of that night and the next morning are completely normal. Derek doesn't know what he had been thinking.

--

The e-mails become more generic and far apart. Derek realizes one day that he really has no idea about what she's doing anymore, and it feels strange to him. When Sam mentions that she's been having roommate problems, Derek nods like he knows, but all he actually knows about her is that she loves her classes and the campus is beautiful. It hurts him a little to think that he has no idea if she's even dating anyone. It hurts him more to think about the possibility that she is, and it hurts him the most to think about possibly not even finding out about it until they're married.

--

When he goes home for the summer, he finds out she is dating someone. By the end of the summer, she's still dating the same guy, and still loves him, and Derek's said thirty-seven words to her directly since they arrived home.

Something feels off, and Derek knows it, and part of him thinks that Casey feels it, too, but he refuses to talk to her unless absolutely necessary. George and Nora compliment them on their newfound maturity, impressed that they haven't fought at all. (They had come to some silent agreement that it wasn't worth it anymore.)

That night, Derek thinks he hears Casey crying. He doesn't let himself believe that it's about him.

--

They do get engaged, Casey and that guy, during the summer between their third and fourth year at college. Derek is so far removed from Casey's life at that point that he hears it from a friend of a friend. The thing that kills him the most is that he isn't surprised.

Derek Venturi doesn't cry. But that night, he quietly pushes some tears out of his eyes.

--

He kind of sort of dates pretty much every single girl he can, and sleeps with even more. He finds himself falling into the same stupid routine that he fell into in high school, but he feels so screwed up that it doesn't really matter. He wants to think that he's past his crush, and forces himself to stop thinking about her.

It doesn't work, but he keeps doing it because he doesn't know what to do anymore.

--

George and Nora invite Casey and Matt for the holidays. Matt obliges, of course, and when Derek hears this, he rolls his eyes, and figures it only made sense that Casey would marry a yes-man.

When Derek arrives home, Matt and Casey are already there. Matt looks like everything Casey had ever thought she wanted. He's clean, well-groomed, he seems to be laughing at all the right moments and he never, ever says a mean word the entire time he's there.

Derek shakes his hand firmly and meets his eyes with a cold stare. "Nice to meet you."

Matt agrees, and if he notices the tension, he doesn't let it show. Instead, he just says, "I'm really glad I'm going to be part of your family." Derek glances out of the corner of his eye at Casey. She's studying a spot on the floor that isn't particularly interesting.

"Hey, Casey," he greets her, and she meets his gaze, and he feels like throwing up because all of the feelings he's tried to forget about come rushing back at him, full-force, and the look in her eyes feel like a punch in the stomach.

She seems content. Not happy, but just a little better than apathetic. She's quieter, doesn't go on as many of her little rants, and only makes a half-hearted attempt to correct George when he says "who" instead of "whom". Derek feels like he's looking at a stranger, but when he mentions it to George, Nora, and Lizzie later, they frown and tell him that she's grown up, hasn't he noticed?

Edwin overhears and agrees with him, but says, "Well, what can we do?" Derek doesn't answer.

--

The family wants to show Matt around London the next day. Derek feigns an illness and every single person in the room know he's faking it, but they let him off the hook. It isn't until a half hour after he hears the car leave that Casey walks into his room, where he's laying on his bed, embodying an unhealthy combination of anger and frustration.

She sits on his bed and he doesn't say anything, although he's dying to know why she's there and not with him, and what she sees in him, and what she's been doing, and how she still managed to look exactly the same minus some of her former glow.

"I don't want to get married to him if we're like this," she says quietly.

He frowns, and considers playing dumb, but it's been too long. "Come on, Case," he says. "You're saying that you'd actually prefer us to be fighting and yelling our heads off at each other?"

"It's better than this!" she says, her voice rising with more enthusiasm he had heard from her in a long time. "This...whatever it is! I don't even know how it happened, but it's just really _weird_, and I don't know what..." She trails off.

Derek snorts. "Why do you even care?" he asks, and his voice is sarcastic, but he finds himself waiting anxiously to hear her answer.

"Dammit, Derek, of course I care, you're my brother!"

Derek draws in a sharp breath as he physically winces at her words. He feels his heart plummet into his stomach, and then he just feels empty. He freezes and stays quiet, but Casey's already noticed, and she tries to fix it. "I mean, step--"

"Just get out," he says, his voice betraying him, gesturing towards the door. She stays, though, and he stares out the window determinedly until she finally gives up and leaves.

--

He sneaks into her room later that night to apologize, to try to convince her that what she's thinking isn't true, but she's not there. His stomach knots up again, wondering if she's crept downstairs for a midnight tryst with Matt (George and Nora forced him to sleep on the couch). He can't resist just taking a peek, but sees only one sleeping figure on the couch. He looks and looks and finally finds her outside, sitting on the doorstep, her head in her hands.

He quietly sits next to her. She doesn't move until he asks,

"Why'd you want to get out of Ontario so badly?"

She lifts her head and looks at him looking at his hands, confusion on her face, clearly not expecting that to be the first real thing he's asked her in years.

Her answer doesn't surprise him. "Because of you."

--

He watches some mindless television with Lizzie the next day, but his thoughts are on the cool air that surrounded him and Casey last night and whispered conversations. He gives the remote to Lizzie and tells her to watch whatever she wants and doesn't notice when she proceeds to watch soccer for three hours straight.

Casey, Matt, George, and Nora are out for lunch and a day of bonding, and Derek doesn't expect them back for hours. He nervously taps his knee every once in awhile and it takes an hour before Lizzie tells him to go have a nervous breakdown somewhere else.

"So," he says, trying to keep his voice casual. "You like this Matt guy?"

"Yeah, he's really nice," Lizzie answers. She looks at him out of the corner of her eye. "Do _you_ like him?"

"Oh, yeah, he's just great," Derek says, not trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Just perfect."

They stay silent for a moment, Derek silently fuming. "You know, she's really nervous about getting married," Lizzie offers.

Derek turns his head to look at her and frowns. "What, about finding the perfect dress, and the perfect place, and the perfect everything?"

"No, she'll get all that done," Lizzie assures him, and he rolls his eyes because she's right. "She's just nervous because our mom and dad used to fight all the time before they got divorced. It was really hard on everyone. She's scared of getting divorced and going through it all again. Matt's parents are still together, so he doesn't really get it."

Derek pauses. "I do."

--

Derek only dates one girl kind of seriously in his college years. Her name is Erin and they last three months. She's pretty cool and he likes hanging out with her. She doesn't mind staying in on weekends and watching mindless movies with him while eating Chinese food, and she lets him have sex with her on their first date. For a few moments, he forgets about Casey and actually thinks that he might make it with this girl.

There's a film contest on campus and he gets really excited. The prize doesn't include money, but they do showcase it in front of everyone who shows up to the festival and who wouldn't want that glory? He starts planning right away and can't help but bounce ideas off of all his non-film friends (he doesn't want any of his ideas stolen, after all).

Erin is no help at all. He talks about it the most with her, and she tries to look interested, but can't offer any more advice than, "That sounds good, D." After a few days of this, he snaps.

"Don't you even care?" he asks, his voice uncharacteristically harsh.

"Derek, of course I do," she says. "Whatever you do will be fine, you know that."

He dumps her the next day in a nice enough manner. His friends tell him he's stupid, and sometimes he thinks he is, but not because of that. He just wishes he had someone who would motivate him to do the best he possibly could, like...like someone had, once.

--

He graduates. She graduates. They attend each other's ceremonies and give each other awkward congratulatory hugs. The wedding is three months away and Derek hates feeling like he's lost when there's still time.

He gets offered an amazing job at a film company in Toronto. He's not directing, but the work is fun and he doesn't have to move far. He and Sam get an apartment together, and in the moments that he's not thinking about weddings or certain brunettes, he's happy.

Casey doesn't get a job right away. She wants to focus on the wedding, and Derek knows that no matter how long she waits, there will always be dozens of job offers for her.

She calls him once, around a month before the wedding. She makes sure he's actually coming, and then casually asks if he's bringing a date, just to get a final count.

He hesitates, then tells her he's thinking of flying solo on this one. "Bringing girls to weddings is the worst," he says. "They get all teary and constantly hint about how one day that could be me and her. If I wanted that kind of emotional baggage, I'd just watch the Woman's Channel."

There's a small silence, and then he hears a small giggle on the other end. He breathes out, his face relaxing into a smile. He takes a chance and asks her how the planning is going, which was both the right and wrong thing to ask, because she launches into a whole long story about the florist and what exactly he did wrong that day. Derek has no idea what she's talking about, but it's the most normal conversation they've had in years and he listens to every single word she says.

He calls her back a week later, missing her voice, and they make it a regular thing. They talk and tease, and he loves to make her laugh. He feels hope when she says goodbye, but doesn't hang up right away. For a few seconds, he can still hear her breathing, and he closes his eyes and memorizes the sound.

--

Derek drives in for the week before the wedding. Nora and George tell him that he's going to have to help with the wedding, but Derek has no idea what to expect, considering how he's terrible at helping _and_ weddings. Especially weddings that make him want to strangle the groom.

He can't sleep the night before he leaves for London. The drive is uneventful and his CD goes through three rotations before he drives into the familiar driveway. He blinks and doesn't really remember actually getting there.

He's tackled by Marti the second he opens the door. In his eyes, she's still six years old. She laughs and scolds him for not coming over enough. He ruffles her hair and starts tickling her, which still doesn't fail to make her fall over laughing.

He looks up to see Casey walking down the stairs to see what the fuss was about. She looks stressed and ready to snap at any moment. Her hair is messy and her sweatshirt is uneven and she's wearing sweatpants that are three inches too short on her legs, and he had forgotten how beautiful she was.

"Hey, Casey," he says, giving her a friendly smile. She returns it and gives him a lingering hug. He doesn't want to let go.

"This is it!" she says, putting on an anxious smile. His heart breaks a little more.

--

"You know, you should just tell her," Edwin tells him later that night when they're sure no one else can hear them.

Derek glares at him. "In what universe could that end well?"

"At least she'd know," he says, and goes back to playing his PSP. "Come on. Don't tell me you actually like the guy."

Derek scoffs. "I don't like _any_ of the guys," he said. "_Especially_ the ones like..."

Edwin glances up. "Like...you?"

Derek lets his head fall into his hands. "Yeah. Something like that."

--

Matt's parents fly in the next day and they all play a big game of charades to relieve the stress. Casey, Edwin, George, Marti, and Matt's mom are on one team, and Matt, Derek, Lizzie, Nora, and Matt's dad are on the other. Derek starts out not caring, but the spirit of competitiveness gets the better of him and he and Casey start really getting into it.

The scores are tied, and it's the last round. Neither team gets Nora's frenzied reenactment of "The Little Mermaid". Casey's up last, and she looks determined. Derek grins. He has to admit, Casey isn't too bad at guessing, but she's terrible at the acting.

Even Edwin doesn't get Casey's frantic attempts at acting out a two-word video game. She keeps gesturing towards herself, then pointing a gun in the air. No on on her team gets it.

"And Matt's team for the steal?" George asks, looking at them skeptically.

"Babe Raider."

Derek sits back, a satisfied smirk on his face as Casey nods and pretends to look more upset than she is. His team starts cheering and patting him on the back, and he nods and puts his hands up like a movie star.

"What can I say?" he says, his voice smug and arrogant. "Not everyone can know Casey as well as I do."

He's pretty sure he meant to say 'video games' instead of 'Casey', and he starts for a moment, but then he steals a look at her face. She seems to be frozen, with a searching expression as she looks back at him for a moment. She then quickly looks at Matt, swallows, puts a smile on her face, and congratulates him and his team.

Edwin and Lizzie notice the exchange, but everyone else is laughing in an after-game mood. No one notices Derek slip up to his room and no one hears when he punches his fist as hard as he can into his bed. It hurts, but he's felt worse.

--

Derek doesn't try to make Matt's life miserable the next few days. It just comes naturally. He argues with him on almost every single point Matt tries to make, even if he feels the same way. Matt takes it in good spirits and thinks that it's some sort of weird bonding thing with Derek and that his smirks meant that he had his approval.

Casey walks in on them arguing about hockey in the kitchen. Derek, of course, is defending his favorite sport to the death, and Matt's just in the middle of saying, "I just can't support something that thrives on the violence of the players."

Derek's mouth is hanging open at that, and then he sees Casey enter the room. He shakes his head and looks between the two of them.

"Forget it," he says, throwing his hands up in defeat. "You two are clearly perfect for each other."

He shoves his hands in his pockets and leaves the kitchen, his eyes not meeting Casey's. He checks her lightly in the shoulder as he passes by her if only to get some sort of physical contact. He still shivers.

He's at the base of the stairs when he hears Matt ask, "What does that have to do with hockey?"

--

He's sitting by himself in the laundry room, waiting for a load to be done, and it's quiet in the rest of the house, when Casey comes up to him out of nowhere and shoves him. Hard.

After regaining his balance, he sputters out a, "What the hell, Casey?!"

"Why. Do you. Have. To ruin. _Everything_!" she yells, accentuating her words with a shove.

Derek scrambles out of her reach. "What are you _talking _about?" he asks, and his eyes widen at the murderous look in her eyes. He's heard that brides-to-be are supposed to go a little crazy, but he never really thought that crazy for Casey was, well, _insane_.

"It is two-oh-two and you were supposed to leave by two o'clock to go pick up Matt's tuxedo and the party favors for my bachelorette party, but instead you're just sitting. On. The washer!" She proceeds to shove him again.

"_God, Casey!_ My laundry's gonna be done in three minutes, and then I was going to take it out to free up the dryer for anyone else who might need it, because I am _such a generous guy_, and then I was gonna go. Chill. Out." This is a complete lie. Derek had completely forgotten that he is supposed to be speeding towards the tux shop right then and silently thanks some higher power for the excellent timing on his laundry.

"Oh, yeah? Well..." Casey says, and her voice trails off as she tries to think of another offense. He crosses his arms and waits. "What about calling the caterers for the reception?"

"Already done," Derek says smugly. "And I also called the florist and told them that it was completely unacceptable to have mixed roses, and that if they weren't all red, then they would have an entire raging family on their hands."

"Oh, yeah," Casey says, her forehead burrowing.

"You forgot."

"So?!" she almost screeches, and she's back to her neurotic self. "You...you've been mean to Matt all week!"

The second the words leave her mouth, she bites her lip and they both look down at the floor at their shoes. After a moment, Derek looks up, her face painted with a tinge of remorse at her words. He's about to say something that would hopefully not be "I want to fucking kiss you right now", but the laundry machine beeps behind him. He closes his eyes for a second before dumping the entire load in a laundry basket.

Before he heads out of the room, he looks at her and asks, "Why do you care what I do?"

When she doesn't answer, when she doesn't even have the decency to meet his gaze, he sighs and walks out.

--

Even if had been able to sleep that night, he still would have been startled at Casey bursting into his room at four in the morning.

"You have no right to be mad at me," she says, and he looks at her face and notices that it's red and blotchy. She had been crying all night, by Derek's estimates.

"Well, I had no right to be mean to you in high school, but I still pulled that off pretty well," he says sarcastically.

"We never talked!" Casey sputters, and Derek looks over at her in alarm, hoping she won't burst into tears all over his room.

"Casey..."

"We never talked!" Casey repeats, and she looks like she's going to go into one of her long speeches, and Derek backs up on his bed involuntarily. "You never called. Your e-mails were pathetic. We only spoke to each other when we came back home and had to live with each other again. You could clearly live without me. And you know what? You were doing pretty well before our parents even got married. So don't act like me getting married is really affecting you, because you're not that good of a liar. You and I both know that you're going to go on living like Derek Venturi always lived, chasing after girls and charming his way out of everything."

"Shut up," he says, his voice low, and sometime during her speech he had gotten on his feet, although he doesn't remember.

"No, Derek, you..."

"Casey!" he hisses. The last thing he wants is for the entire house to wake up. "You're supposed to be so smart, and you still don't get anything, do you?"

"I get that for some twisted reason you're trying to make my life miserable," she says. "You don't have the right..."

"'I don't have the right' to _what_?"

"You don't have the right to try to make me feel guilty for marrying Matt. You don't have the right to walk around with that stupid grin on your face that clearly says 'Casey's making the biggest mistake of her life'. And you don't have the right to...to add yourself into this! This is about me and Matt, and not about you, and you have no right to try and sabotage us just because _you were too late_!"

Derek only has time to take one quick breath as what she says absorbs into his brain, and then his lips are crushed onto hers, and he never has to wonder what she tastes like again. He doesn't really think that this is cheating, because she can't honestly expect him not to do anything after saying something like that. Or at least that's how he justifies it in the one tiny part of his brain that's still operational.

She kisses back, too, and his hands lightly brush her skin underneath her shirt when she pushes him away. His lips leave hers, and he immediately feels like this is the only time he's ever been right about anything, ever. He leans back slightly, but his hands are still clamped onto her forearms and he has no intention of letting go.

"Fuck it, Casey, I love you," he says through ragged breaths. "Why don't you know that by now?"

"Derek," she breathes, and her eyes are on his lips again, and he's about to bring them closer together again, but she shakes her head slightly. "I can't."

Derek fights the feeling of his heart being crushed, and he says, "Don't be stupid, of course you can."

"Derek, I'm getting married in three days."

"No, you have a wedding planned in three days. Getting married isn't exactly a requirement."

Despite everything, she grins. He can suddenly feel his heart beating again and feels hope. He keeps talking in the hope that she won't overthink this.

"Just cancel it, Casey. Forget about all the people you think you'll be disappointing. If you marry this guy, you're going to end up unhappy or divorced. There's no way that with this, with that _kiss_, that you can honestly tell yourself that marrying Matt is the right thing to do."

Suddenly her eyes went wide. "I cheated on Matt."

"Casey, Casey, Casey, look at me," he pleaded, shaking her arms and forcing her to look in his eyes. "If you marry Matt without being completely sure that it's what you want? You know you can't do that. Not to him, not to your family. Not to me. Not to yourself. Haven't you...haven't you ever thought about your future? What it would be like with him?"

"Yeah," she says, and she's struggling with her words. "We'd both have our careers, and then kids, get a house, stay close to...to family..."

"And are you happy, Case?"

She pauses. "Kind of."

He shakes her slightly so she's looking at him again. She looks terrified. "I would make you ecstatic," he whispers, tracing her chin with his finger. "I mean, yeah, I'd make you angry sometimes, but I'd make you so damn happy the rest of the time, and you'd actually feel something, something more than just contentment. Case, don't you get it? I can make you feel more than anyone else in the world can, and you, and I, and hell, even _Edwin_ knows it."

For the first time ever, she's crying and he doesn't push her away. Instead, he keeps searching her eyes for an answer, and he can't believe that he's actually standing in his old bedroom with Casey McDonald in his arms, waiting for her to tell him how she feels.

When she says "Yes" and touches her lips to his again without any further thought, it isn't dramatic and there isn't any background music, but it's perfect anyway.

--


End file.
